Can I Get A Witness

 In September my foster daughters were abducted from my home by their parents. It was a traumatic event for me and my children. Fortunately, we have been able to work through it and other than wishing we could have said good-bye to the girls, we have basically put the incident behind us. We even had a placement since they left. In my mind, it was all over. I had signed up on the registry website to see when the parents might be release from jail and I found, after they were returned to our state from a neighboring state, they had a preliminary hearing scheduled for Friday. Other than wanting to know they were still in jail, I didn’t think much more about it. Last Wednesday I could see through our Ring camera a Sherriff had come to our house. I panicked. I know I am a law abiding citizen and should have nothing to fear, but I had no idea why the law might be looking for me. I asked Primero and he also had no clue, but wondered if it had anything to do with the abduction. I told a friend about it and she suggested contacting the Sherriff’s office to ask why they were looking for me. It was too late in the day, so I called the next morning. I spoke with someone and he asked if I had witnessed anything recently. Yes, the abduction. He didn’t confirm, but what else could it be? My next panic attack was because I had not received the letter CYS told me they would send exonerating me of the allegations the girls mom made. I emailed the case manager and she emailed me back almost right away with the letter she had mailed the beginning of October. I forwarded the letter to the CHOR case worker and mentioned being subpoenaed for court for the parents, wondering if this might mean I would have to put my house on pause. She called me and said, “Yeah, I was subpoenaed too for court tomorrow.” Tomorrow? Oh man! I thought it was in the future. I lamented to her how I knew the only defense the parents had was to paint me as the bad guy. They had to rescue their daughters from an awful home. She confirmed this was likely what would happen and promised to stand up for me reminding me I had an exemplary record, completely blemish free. I was still upset, knowing this would play out in court and become public record. Lovely. My supervisor gave me sage advise when I told him I would not be into work Friday morning. He advised me to only answer the questions I was asked and to not add any further details. He also recommended finding a poker face, which I do not possess.

 

Friday morning I dropped Love Bug off at school and headed over to the court house. I was so nervous. Once inside the building I found the CHOR case worker and we chatted nervously while we waited. I saw the parents walk in and she confirmed they had been release from prison the previous Friday. So much for the notification system. Once we were finally allowed in we were ushered upstairs to a small room to check in as witnesses/victims. We waited some more before the lawyer came to talk to us. She talked to me first and said the hearing was basically the mom trying to regain supervised visits with her kids. I explained how I have been of two mind this whole time. On the one hand I am angry. I am mad because my home was violated and my children traumatized. I am angry that we were made to feel unsafe in our own home and then had salt poured in our wounds when CYS had to investigate the allegations. The compassionate side of me hurts for their children because they too were traumatized and confused by all that had happened. Then I told her I did not think having visits would be a good idea because it was during the visits that the parents were able to convince their daughter to do what she did. The parents had been able to manipulate their daughter into walking out of a safe, warm house carrying her baby sister. And they did this during supervised visits. So, no I didn’t think that was a good idea. The lawyer said she hoped we wouldn’t have to testify, but not long after she went into the court room, she came back out and said we would be needed. She wanted to have me go first and then the CHOR case worker. We sat outside the court room and waited. A few of the cops who had been at my house showed up in plain clothes. They too were subpoenaed to testify. The one told me the parents lawyer also subpoenaed the state police from the other state calling their report to the local police hearsay. Finally, the lawyer came back out and said it was decided things were moving to the next level (I don’t know what this means) and I would not have to testify that day. She also said the visits were denied at this point.

 

The hardest part was seeing the parents again. Being in their presence just rubbed me the wrong way. The mom was angry when she came out of the court room the final time. I’m sure she blamed me, I’m her favorite scapegoat. When I was leaving I accidentally made eye contact with the dad. I refused to look away, making him break contact first. I truly hope I won’t have to go back and testify, but the lawyer promised she would contact me and let me know if I was needed. She also promised to keep me informed about what was happening in the case.

 

I had written a victim impact statement before court and found it very cathartic. In the information I brought home there was a form for a child victim to fill out and I am going to have Chica Marie fill it out because she has been the most vocal about all that has transpired. I will email both of the items to the victim coordinator once they are complete. And hopefully we can finally put this all behind us.  

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